Friday, July 6, 2007

Stone Soup

This is a wonderful comic strip... and one of my favorites. Check out its official website here.

Unfortunately, it isn't carried by my newspaper so I've been catching up on Val, Holly, Alix, Wally, Phil, Andy, Joan, Evie and Max through the book collections. The characters don't age, but somehow the strip always feels fresh and funny. Jan Eliot is one the few syndicated female cartoonists and its wonderful to see real life and working moms on the comics page. The comic strip has a terrific organic drawing style and a unique, funny sense of humor. It's also one of the few comic strips I know that shows blended families... which I think is very realistic, and you don't see a lot of it in Dennis the Menace.

This is one of those strips that it's helpful to read from the very beginning, because there have been some major plot developments and character additions. If you're interested, here's the list of other books in the series in order, starting with the first one: Stone Soup, You Can't Say Boobs on Sunday, Stone Soup the Comic Strip, Road Kill in the Closet, and Not So Picture Perfect. The new one, Desperate Households just came out... it's the sixth collection so far.

It's almost impossible to read a Stone Soup strip and not see yourself in it.

2 comments:

not related to your post...but i see you have The Westing Game listed in your book list!! I love that book. I think you and I read that about the same time when we were kids. I wonder if I still have my copy somewhere...